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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562455">had the shiniest wheels (now they're rusting)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys'>plinys</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Clones, F/F, Missing Scene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:27:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an advertisement taking up most of the first page, a new Collector’s Edition clone, the <i>Luxurious Ava</i>. It featured daytime and nighttime looks, the latest fashions, black coffee, designer nail polish colors, a sense of self-importance, and - “Three celery sticks?”</p>
<p>[Or: While cleaning out the Time Bureau after they are shut down, Ava stumbles upon an AVA Corp catalog.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>220</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>had the shiniest wheels (now they're rusting)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by the writer's room posting all of the Ava boxes from I, Ava over on twitter (thanks Lucy for asking for them!). This is set between Seasons 4 and 5.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>If Ava had things her way this room would have remained undisturbed for all of time. Locked away, out of sight and out of mind, until she was ready to process everything that it stood for. Of course, time never seems to actually be on her side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a thick layer of dust over everything, undisturbed for the last year. She’d made excuses before, claimed that the security on the room had been too hard for even her to crack and that it didn’t matter anyway because she much preferred keeping her old offices and turning them into the new and improved Director of the Time Bureau’s office.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Technically she’s not the Director anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because there isn’t a Time Bureau anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just an empty hallway, most everyone else already cleared out, packed their things away in nice and tidy boxes, moved to storage units, or parent’s houses, or apartments that they wouldn’t be able to afford any more. The only offices left untouched were those occupied by the agents that never made it back to this time period…. Or died in the line of duty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nate had insisted on being the one to clear out his father’s office, waived off any help that Ava had offered, and the rest of the Legends had been recruited to help with everything else. Mostly they were deciding what to take from the unclaimed and left-behind belongings and bring back to the Waverider, and what to toss in the donation pile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s pretty sure Sara just bullied them all into helping. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’ll thank her later when this is all done when she figures out where to go from here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For now…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava’s eyes settle on the dust-covered nameplate on the table. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Rip Hunter, Director of the Time Bureau</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her stomach churns. There’s bitterness there, anger, at having so many of her questions about herself doomed to go unanswered forever because just when she had finally begun to figure things out Rip had decided to die in order to give them an extra day to figure everything out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You really were a piece of shit weren’t you,” she says, even as her voice chokes with tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s sadness too, the sadness she can’t even begin to explain or talk about, sadness that she thought she had put behind herself months ago. There’s never been time to mourn. Not for any of them. And she’s certainly not about to start now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ava,” Sara’s voice comes from the doorway like a question, “You okay in there?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she replies. Hand scrubbing at the tears before they can make their journey down her cheeks. “Just the dust.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara makes a noise like she doesn’t believe her, she knows Ava too well for that, before slipping into the room. “I figured you didn’t want to be alone for this one?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine, really, I-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Plus Rip always had the weirdest shit,” Sara cuts her off. They both know that Ava’s not fine. “I mean most of the stuff in the library back on the ship was there because of him. I don’t even know what half of it does.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So the Lego Millenium Falcon is his?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, that’s Ray’s, I’m pretty sure he shrinks down and pretends to be Han Solo sometimes,” Sara replies with a laugh. “Though Rip did share a dorm room back in college with George Lucas.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait what?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s weird to consider sometimes that the Rip that Ava remembers from her time at the Time Bureau, the most serious and a little scatterbrained director that had been a mentor to her for the four years Ava had known him, and the Rip that the Legends knew, the chaotic time traveler that didn’t live by the rules and occasionally kissed the AI running his time ship, were, in fact, the same person. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a long story,” Sara waves me off. “He had amnesia, and smoked a lot of weed, and the moral of the story is that Amaya basically inspired Princess Leia after she saved George Lucas from Nora’s evil dad.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a hint of sadness in Sara’s voice when she mentions </span>
  <em>
    <span>Amaya</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nobody ever said that you’d lose so many people when traveling through time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me the story,” Ava insists. Needing this. Needing a distraction. “We’ve got the time, and I’m sure it’s a truly </span>
  <em>
    <span>Legendary </span>
  </em>
  <span>mess of a story.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara understands well enough what she’s not saying. It’s why they work so well together, and why Ava is seriously considering Sara’s offer of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>job </span>
  </em>
  <span>when this is all over. Or at least, a rent-free home and a bed shared with the love of her life, and a team of idiots to look after.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not the worst offer in the world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, but we have to fill up this box with any good stuff we find while I tell it,” Sara replies. Placing a cardboard box that’s been poorly put together, probably the word of Behrad, down on the floor between the two of them. “The library could use more mystery objects.”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Deal.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They work through the room easily enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Each taking an end of the room and starting to open up the drawers as they get to work. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara tells the story of their mission to save the existence of Star Wars as they go about cleaning out the room. Most of it goes into the pile to be shredded down or into the garbage bags if the information isn’t sensitive enough to be of much difference. Sara is far more sentimental than she is, saving some baseball cards, a Time Bureau softball hoodie, a flute (why exactly Rip had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>flute </span>
  </em>
  <span>on his bookshelf was beyond her understanding), an old umbrella, and many more objects that Ava wouldn’t have given a second thought to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara is in the middle of recounting how the Legends directly inspired the Star Wars trash compactor sequence when everything seems to slow down at once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Metaphorically.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Time as always continues on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even if Ava’s forgotten how to breathe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’d meant to save the folder to look at later, slip them into the box that Sara had brought, and save them for a time when she’d had enough drinks to handle whatever it was that Rip had written down about her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava had already made sure to set aside the folders of each of the Legends, even though she had them all memorized at this point, had been given them two years ago when she had first been assigned the job of safeguarding time from the people that would eventually become her family. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But she’d miscalculated, grabbed the folder wrong, and the contents fluttered to the floor before she could stop them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s not the sort of papers she had seen in the folders of the Legends. Not a list of factors, history, and superpowers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure there’s the standard Time Bureau employee paperwork, her performance reviews, but that’s not what she’s stuck on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a catalog. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not just any catalog.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Her </span>
  </em>
  <span>catalog.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>AVA Corp </span>
  </em>
  <span>Winter shopping catalog, offering special discounts just in time for the holiday season. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, babe, let me help you clean that up,” Sara calls out, from across the room. Because she sees the scattered paper on the floor, not just the one thing that Ava can’t move past. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, no I- I don’t need,” her voice shakes. Those insecurities, those doubts, and nightmares, and things she told herself she was over once Sara saved her from her own personal IKEA from hell, suddenly coming back up. She slams her hand down over the cover, not to hide it all away, but to block out the picture of a woman that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>but also not her staring back from the glossy cover of a catalog. “I’ve got this, everything’s fine, everything’s-” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh shit, Ava.” Sara sees it now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her arms coming up to hold onto Ava, her hugs have always offered comfort, but this time, maybe it’s not quite enough. Ava can hear the lie in her own voice even as she tries to insist, “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’ll shred it,” Sara tells her. “Come on, fuck the rest of this, let’s go shred it and then forget about it, and get a drink and-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sara.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The boys can finish cleaning this place out,” Sara insists. “You don’t have to…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t finish the sentence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t have to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They both know there’s only one way this can end. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have to,” Ava insists. “You know, I have to.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know I love you,” Sara says. “More than anything. I love </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, this </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you’re so much more than any piece of paper or catalog or advertisement. You’re Ava Sharpe, the love of my life, and nothing inside of this magazine is going to change that.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Catalogue,” Ava corrects, insistently. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Catalogue,” she repeats. “Celebrities are in magazines, </span>
  <em>
    <span>products </span>
  </em>
  <span>are in catalogs.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, don’t talk about my girlfriend like that,” Sara says, as she laces their fingers together. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava takes a deep breath. Shaky and nervous. It would be so much easier to just do what Sara had suggested. To take the magazine straight to the shredder and erase it from time, to never look back on her past - or technically the </span>
  <em>
    <span>future</span>
  </em>
  <span> - but this is something she’s been mourning for the last year.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her sense of self. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One of the many things lost to time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So against all better judgment, she opens the AVA Corp catalog. It’s a bit like looking through an American Doll magazine - her fabricated childhood memories call up a kinship with the Kit doll - except instead of the child models all being hired because they look sort of like the dolls, all of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>dolls </span>
  </em>
  <span>look just like Ava. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Page after page. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s an advertisement taking up most of the first page, a new </span>
  <em>
    <span>Collector’s Edition </span>
  </em>
  <span>clone, the Luxurious Ava. It featured daytime and nighttime looks, the latest fashions, black coffee, designer nail polish colors, a sense of self-importance, and - “Three celery sticks?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s a joke I could make there, but I’m not sure it would be appropriate,” Sara says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava lets out a small huff of air that could almost be a laugh. “Well, we know that one isn’t me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“None of them are you,” Sara replies, without hesitation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava wants to believe her, she really does, but another part of her needs to know what model it was that Rip had bought all those years ago. What model he bought </span>
  <em>
    <span>eleven times </span>
  </em>
  <span>before finally getting it right. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To finally have a little bit of closure. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s just start by ruling out which ones I’m definitely not,” Ava says instead. Flipping the next page. Where </span>
  <em>
    <span>Artistic Ava </span>
  </em>
  <span>stares up at her from the pages. “For example, I am definitely not that one.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Sara muses, slowly warming up to the idea. “I think you’d look pretty hot in a pirate shirt, we could have Gideon make that happen.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava wrinkles her nose. “Please now is not the time for your sex fantasies.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t help it, babe, you’re always sexy to me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As if to prove her point, the next page they turn to advertises exactly that - </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sexy Ava</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava starts to read off the listed accessories with a tone of mild discuss, “Four skin-tight dresses, insane heels, tiny purse, a champagne glass-” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Basically New Year’s with the Legends,” Sare teases, “You know, you do have </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazing hair</span>
  </em>
  <span> and an adorable laugh, and I would pay good money to see you in a skin-tight dress.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“One day,” Ava insists. Unable to help the smile that comes to her face. Sara has a way of making this fun and not nearly so traumatic. “I’ll wear one just for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh and thirty-five preprogrammed pick up lines,” Sara says, voice filled with far too much mirth, “Let’s go, Aves, hit me with your best pick up line.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava searches her brain for anything that is not completely terrible. There’s definitely not </span>
  <em>
    <span>thirty-five </span>
  </em>
  <span>of them programmed anywhere up there. The only thing she can come up with is -”Do you have a BandAid?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara rolls her eyes, but replies, “No why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I scraped my knee falling for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They both burst into laughter at the same time. Laughing at how all of this really is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, okay, definitely not the sexy edition.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I still love you, baby, even if you are a huge nerd.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next few pages are easily skipped over: </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fun Ava with her sexy but painful shoes, the morning after sunglasses, and poor decision-making abilities.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(“That better be what tomorrow morning looks like.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not on your life, Lance.”)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gentle Ava with her picture books, crayons, gender-neutral toys, and an excellent repertoire of bedtimes stories. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(“So next Legends slumber party night-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You love reading! We’re in a book club!”)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Inspired Ava with her sheet music, dark velvet dress, light velvet dress, and a lifetime of training. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(“Wait, can you actually play the violin? Because I think Behrad can play the violin too and apparently Mick can play the cello, we could have an actual band. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since when can Mick play the cello?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know, ask him.”)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Providing Ava with her rolling pin, butter, whole wheat flour, and lovely smile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(“There’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>gluten-free </span>
  </em>
  <span>mode.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re not telling Ray about this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, but consider what if we do!”)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Exploring Ava with her spacesuit, helmet, moon boots, and an expanded worldview. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(“You know we almost blew up the moon once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t tell me these things.”)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s easy to dismiss most of them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Easy to laugh at the idea that she could have been any of these things. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Others are harder to ignore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The notes in Rip’s handwriting next to some of the models. Intractable Ava is crossed out, with the words ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>failed attempt 5, too much of a soldier’s mentality, sacrificed herself to protect me when it was unnecessary, would probably have committed a war crime without a second thought’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>written next to it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ava, we don’t have to keep going.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I need to know.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara falls silent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There are no cracking jokes now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No teasing reminds. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Compassionate Ava has a note next to it too, the number 6 and 7 both scrawled there, and Rip’s handwriting simply saying ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>Dog people = Bad’</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Disinclined Ava has another number and a note that dance skills do not translate to traveling through time and correcting history skills. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bad-Ass Ava is crossed out with black sharpie, and a note that says ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>Reminds me too much of Sara</span>
  </em>
  <span>’, which has both of them turning the page before they can even begin to dwell on that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Leader Ava apparently tried to steal Rip’s job. She feels that sinking feeling in her stomach again, wonders what Rip would have thought sees as how in the end she ended up in his position after all. And then having the government defund the Time Bureau. Maybe they would have been better off if he had kept that model around. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her fingers are finally still on the page that advertises Assertive Ava, the model that they had fought when they went to the future and saw the factory she was made in. Retractable fighting sticks, thirty-seven ways to kill a target, hand to hand combat skills, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>blind loyalty</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re so much more than that,” Sara speaks for the first time in the last few minutes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s so easy to read it on paper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The stats, like a video game character, except it’s her. Because there in the margins are Rip’s notes confirming that this was the most optimal model. That he wouldn’t have to train it. That he could possibly even get a discount. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know,” Ava says. Her voice only shakes a little, meaning to make a joke of it. Even if it hurts. “That’s two more ways to kill a target than the sexy version had pick up lines.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara presses a kiss to her cheek. Soft, and comforting, slipping the catalog out of Ava’s hands. “Let’s shred it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nods slowly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Settled on this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the foundation of what she was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the fact that </span>
  <em>
    <span>of course </span>
  </em>
  <span>Rip would go for the model that offered blind loyalty. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that even in the end the programming hadn’t mattered, that she had gone beyond the foundation of what she was originally meant to be. Those </span>
  <em>
    <span>clones </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the factory that she and Sara had fought off together over a year ago now, were nothing like the woman that she knows she is now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And even though her chest feels tight, and she knows that she’s going to cry about this later, there’s something reassuring about this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Assertive isn’t the worst thing in the world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara takes the catalog away, means to close it, to put this piece of her past behind her, but her finger gets caught in the last page and just as it goes to shut, and instead of closing to the back cover the magazine opens to the last page.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last doll advertised.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A new model, a holiday special collector’s edition. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Competitive Ava,” she reads off the title. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While all the other clones had looked a little bit different, posed in the sorts of outfits that Ava could never imagine herself wearing, this one is different. Because the woman standing in the middle of the page is dressed in a navy pants suit not dissimilar to the one that Ava is wearing right now. Hair pulled back into the same sort of bun that Ava had tugged her hair up into today with familiar muscle memory so that her hair was out of the way when she cleaned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes immediately latch on the accessories list. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Four power suits, designer briefcase, powerful shoes, no nonsense hair, stress squeeze ball, steely gaze, sensible makeup, after work martini, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>no real friends</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to read it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s me,” Ava tells her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure of this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>More sure that she’s even been of anything else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t do that,” Ava replies. Her voice coming too fast and too shaky, one strong wind from a breakdown. “I’m not blind Sara, look at the description, of course, that’s me. I’m just… I’m just like a doll in the catalog, I’m not-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You are,” Sara says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time managing to actually shut the catalog. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that it matters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The image of that page is burned into Ava’s mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Competitive Ava</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, baby, here,” Sara’s hand cradle her cheeks, pulling Ava down into a kiss. Soft with no real heat behind it. Really just a distraction. So she can get her hand into Ava’s hair and tug her hair down from the bun Ava had carefully put it in, running her hands through it, tangling it more than anything else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava breaks the kiss to ask, “What was that for?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara’s smiling, even if her eyes are worried and sad, “See now you have nice messy and </span>
  <em>
    <span>nonsense </span>
  </em>
  <span>hair,” Sara replies, “And here, take off your suit jacket.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She does as she is told, shrugging off the jacket, and once she’s done Sara tugs it from her hands, replacing it instead with Rip’s old Time Bureau Softball hoodie. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This isn’t going to fit me,” Ava tells her. “Rip was like weirdly skinny and British.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, at least, you’re not in your suit anymore,” Sara tells her. “And I’ll burn the rest of your suits, you’re never allowed to wear them again.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, you know, you don’t actually have to do that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I kinda like the idea of burning them, it’s symbolic, and we do have a friend with a literal flame thrower.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fair enough.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What else was there,” Sara says. More to herself than anything. “Oh right, sensible makeup.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sara spits on her hand as if she intended to rub it on Ava’s face to scrub her makeup, but Ava jerks back just in time, “That’s disgusting, don’t even think about it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Baby, I’m trying to make you feel better.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Rubbing your spit on my face will not make me feel better,” Ava grimaces. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s symbolic! I don’t have a makeup wipe!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava shakes her head, grabbing Sara’s hand pointedly and making sure that she wipes her hands off on her own jeans and nowhere even close to Ava or her own things. Sara’s attempts to cheer her up are kind of a mess and a bit off the mark, but Ava knows what she’s trying to do. And it works, just a little, not perfect, nothing will ever truly fix all of it, but this is a start. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know,” Ava says, voice small, but maybe not as sad as it had been before. Her heart doesn’t ache in that terrible hopeless way, not with Sara sitting here beside her, trying her best to cheer Ava up, even if in a completely disgusting way. “I much prefer a beer over a martini any day.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s go get a beer, right now,” Sara insists. “Let’s get out of here, and get a beer, and then burn all of your pants suits, with the help of all of our wonderful and crazy friends.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow that doesn’t sound like the worst idea ever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In fact, with Sara by her side, it sounds like the perfect idea. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But first - </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ava gathered up the catalog, her employee paperwork, and all those performance reviews shoving them back in the folder. Then she moves over to the box they had been setting aside, pulling out the manila folders with each of the Legend’s names on them, and making a stack with theirs and hers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Could we stop by the paper shredder first, I have some things I want to get rid of?”</span>
</p>
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